(A note before you begin...this one is less mulberries, less manure, less of everything this blog is about. But hey, the fingers type what they please sometimes. Besides, nothing is very new on the farm...unless you count stuff dying from no rain and turning brown from the chill in the air that says it is all about to end.)

...and welcome back. I must say, I thought being unemployed would have me itching to write. And paint. And create with wild abandon in all areas of my existance. And do all of those things I have so effectively used my job in the past as my reason for not doing. Turns out, it wasn't my job that was the problem. It was my creative energy falling asleep on the job. For someone who values creative process above all, it has been a pretty rare commodity around here lately. I had a spurt a while back, and my living room wall now features a not-quite-finished floor to ceiling copper-toned bas relief naked tree sculpture/painting in place of a particularly ugly patch of 1973 trailer house wall paneling. The mismatched, odd-colored patch of paneling was slapped up there many years ago when my grandparents finally came to the conclusion that the hole in the wall in which they had envisioned a fireplace to beacon family and friends on nippy winter evenings was merely going to be a hole in the wall for a good long time yet. The tree that now "grows" up the would-have-been-fireplace wall was not intended to be naked forever, and I still am considering my options for adding leaves- should I shellac some silk leaves and attach them, should I dab the hint of leaves around the tips of the twigs and branches, should I add more plaster bas relief leaves? I walk past it fifty times a day and have stopped seeing it, but when I do, it still asks it's creator for something more. Perhaps this is just the curse of the creating of pretty things- that one must finally just stop, because true perfection will never be achieved and the devil of self doubt is in the details.

But aside from than that one wild swing at feeding the beast that spews ideas and aches to create and lives inside me and has been in total hibernation lately, I have to say that there has been not much desire to paint or build or grow or write, which is odd since writing is my easiest, least messy creative outlet and satisfies two urges, the urge to be known and the urge to create. I blame energy. The lack thereof. They don't lie when they say growing small humans can zap one's energy and turn one into a zombie with a carb fetish. Or that hormones can turn a perfectly happy mind Shire, all rolling green hills and dancing hobbits, into Helm's Deep with no warning, merely the hint of a bit of scheduling conflict or the perceived insult of a comment made or compliment withheld. Or that patience, the quality one suddenly becomes aware that one is lacking to the point of fatal deficiency now that one counts the weeks (20ish) until one is going to need it in bulk, wholesale, by the freighter-load, slides further from one's grasp the harder one reaches for it and vows to remember next time to reason first, react second.

And the saddest thing about this all is that even these hormones that course through my brain, dancing along neural pathways and laughing as they manipulate and unplug and replug and reroute the circuit board that is my brain on high amounts of estrogen, progesterone, HCG, and whatever else has me repurposed as the sacred vessel, albeit a bit of a cracked one in which all the crazy leaks out, is that these hormones are a walk in the park compared to the ones that happened after that second miscarriage. These I can deal with. These create actual mood swings, with all that they imply- that eventually, there will be an upswing to counteract the plunge. These laugh at themselves even as they hear the crazy coming out, because regardless of how many severed heads and blazing fireballs they load up the trebuchets with and send rocketing over the black, ominous fortress walls to flatten unsuspecting husbands, they actually live when not creating chaos in a place where the sun shines, where there is hope that this thing is stronger and more viable every day and that maybe, we can even dare plan on holding it in our arms alive, out in the real world as it breathes air. I still get this feeling of dread, the frantic urge to stop time and just live in this moment when it is still alive, before the pretty dream ends. I still twist in the wind in the four weeks between appointments, which are when I can actually hear it's galloping heartbeat and know for certain that the little movements I want so much to believe are it aren't just ligaments sliding around or muscle spasms or gas or eminent bowel movements sliding into place (that was classy, I know). I wonder about the people who say they love being pregnant. Maybe those are the people who don't know how fragile life is, and how much more fragile fragile life is. For 18 weeks since first seeing those double lines, I have constantly felt the tug of sorrow and dread, like my heart is balanced on the end of a popsicle stick, and as easily as this little life could end with merely the tweak of an imbalanced hormone, a bad fall, early labor, complicated labor, a cervix that doesn't do it's job, etc, etc, this is how easily my heart could overbalance and plunge to the ground and shatter into a zillion jagged shards. And then I realize anew that this is what it feels like to love as a parent, and that just because it is breathing air does not mean that it is safe, and inevitably, I will have to let it out of my sight, and then I wonder if everyone feels this way, and if they do, how it is possible that they don't take better care of their kids. Not the ones who take care of their kids, of course. I mean the ones who don't seem to notice that their kids are raising themselves and somehow unconsciously avoiding the million little things they encounter every day that could harm them.

So enough about that. I feel like my life is like an onion lately- inside is the baby. It is the core, the hope, the happiness. And it is at the core of me. Then there is me, second layer, surrounding the core. All the things I am interested in, my schoolwork, the books I read, the thoughts I have, the person I am. Yes, I find it odd that I am not the core of my own onion at the moment, but hey. I guess that happens sometimes. Then, because I am a housewife now, to the exclusion of most other projects, there are the walls that surround me. Third layer. These cool green walls have become my cave, my space, and they soothe me like few things can. I thought I would get sick of being home all the time, but strangely, the more time I spend here, the less I want to brave anything outside of them. I have become oddly consumed lately with keeping the constant layer of dust off the bookshelves, keeping food flowing from stove and oven, over table to freezer, meal planning and organizing and just, well, puttering about. And surprisingly, there is always something needing puttering over. Outside of that, the fourth layer, is the yard, the garden, the barn, the borderlands of my tiny little life these days. I have stopped caring about it so much, except for the living inhabitants of it, cats and kittens who are almost cats and chickens, who's numbers keep diminishing each time I run out of food and make them wait for a few days and forage until I can get into town to buy more. And except for the garden, which provides onions, banana peppers, bell peppers, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini for my cooking projects. I feel this manic need to harvest and freeze every bit of vegetable that comes from it for this winter. And beyond that, the fifth layer, is the community, this vast peripheral area that may or may not be a priority at any given time. It certainly has been less of a priority lately. Beyond that is the notion of the sixth layer, the world, the excitement of all the places we cold be if we weren't so stuck secure right where we are. And piercing through all the layers, coming and going at precise times, although almost never during the daylight, is Bobby. I cook for him, and he leaves. He returns and I cook him something else. He goes to his office and pays the bills and stares at the computer screen as I cook some more, unpacking his lunch box and repacking his lunch for the next day, chopping salad, putting pre-made frozen food in a casserole dish in the oven which will turn itself on at 5:30 the next morning to heat said food, and by the time the dishwasher sloshes and hums, which is the cue for the household that nothing else will be getting done today, and the dogs have been fed and let outside, and I have gone from kitchen to shower to bed, he is also ready for bed and he joins me until 6 a.m., when the alarm rings and we emerge. I groggily put now-hot food in his lunch thermos and cook breakfast for him, sip hot water and pet Anouk while he sips coffee and pets Andy, I tell him to have a good day, he kisses me and away he goes, tail lights disappearing up the hill in the gray dawn and I am alone again with the dogs and cats and chickens and another 12 hours of my own personal onion. I feel that in Bobby's onion, I may be in about the third layer, since eighty percent of his waking hours are spent in my fifth layer, inside his second layer, his truck cab and the brown and black expanse of field and feedlot and the road between the two.

I tried last week to spend some time in his layer with him, and made it exactly one round, feedlot to field and back to feedlot, before gasping "uncle" and staggering back to my car. He was spreading an insanely rough field that day, and driving a rough road to get there, and I spent most of my time in the passenger's seat bracing myself with my feet against the floorboards, trying to hold my tummy up with one hand and well, let's just say, other heavy, sensitive body parts with the other as we slammed through deep sprinkler tracks. By the time we got back to the feedlot, he was laughing at me. "Do you wonder why my back has gotten so bad?" No, no, I don't wonder. I felt like scrambled eggs inside. My own back was spazzing a bit. My neck hurt. My head ached. My sciatic yanked with each step. I was done. I went home and spent the afternoon cooking and freezing, needing to feel useful so I could feel less guilty about his back being the trade-off for my stay at home lifestyle.

I am trying to find a general idea of the direction I do want to eventually go with my life in this role of parent and onion-dweller, because as comforting as life in the third layer is, I feel like it could lead to a bit of social awkwardness and agoraphobia and just plain liking it too much. And I am afraid of spending an entire lifetime in the third layer and at the end of it, realizing how tiny it all was. I live outside myself. At least, that's what I have always believed about myself. I embrace a big world and I try to make a positive difference in it. I love diversity and I am open minded, I must often remind myself. These are all things that I feel slipping away from me as my third layer restrains embraces me. Plus, another effect of never leaving home in our modern age is that every day, the beliefs and ideas of friends get published on Facebook. I find myself forgetting that spouters of political rhetoric, hard-driving absolutes, rigid opinions, neo-conservatism is not all the people around me are about and there is more, so much more to them, answers to what makes them who they are and love what they love and what makes them present the fronts they choose to, and things to adore about them, but I am not going to find it on a social media site in which only verbal communication, and severely censored verbal communication at that, is experienced. I need to open up these layers and soften the boundaries of each one, allowing them fluidity to become whatever I need them to be and whatever others in my life need them to be. I believe strongly in raising adaptable kids, kids that can eat and sleep and poop no matter where they are at, kids who embrace the kindness of strangers and are kind to strangers and trust humanity, and who are smart about spotting the difference between kind strangers and creeps. As safe as home is, those are values that have to be learned in the field, so to speak. Second and third layer dwellers are secure, and they have simple lives, and they are rarely overwhelmed, which is why, in my general lack of energy lately, it has been so luxurious here. But I feel like after a while, my exhalations may get trapped and all the oxygen in here may have turned to carbon dioxide. So I wonder, do I wait until I start to turn blue, or do I need to be setting up outlets for myself now, even though now I have no desire to use them? Should I be setting up an eventual business now, even though I don't want to do it now?

As I wait, a few projects have found me. I am slowly getting my feet wet in this new world of community initiatives, in the conceptual stages of starting a community garden, hopefully, as well as dreaming up other projects I see myself, a more energetic version of myself, doing. Community dinners with a focus on education in local sustainability. A health coaching practice in which I can support others in the community in making small changes with big impact. A way to mix a love for people, a passion for health and sustainability and a hope for that mythical small town that actually likes being a small town, where local really is best. Maybe it is all a way to chase that always-elusive self image, I don't know. Maybe I just want to be known as a person who does instead of a person who just is. I still don't know why the idea of this idyllic life I lead doesn't do more for me. Why do I always add the "yeah, but" to the idea of being a stay at home wife and mommy? Am I just programmed after having been employed since I was 14? I am incredibly sensitive to people seeing me as lazy. So maybe it is just that, maybe I am still fighting some "spoiled only kid" perception that got deeply etched into my brain by being called a spoiled only kid by, let's see...nearly every single person I knew outside of immediate family, who were obligated to love me and only see the best in me.

So there. That is your introspection for the month. WHen I set out to write this post, I didnt exactly see it going there, but now it has, so I must have needed to process a bit. Lucky you. And now this post, with it's talk about our onions of lives, has me humming Know your Onion by The Shins.

"what kind of life you dream of? you're allergic to love."
Yes I know but I must say in my own defense
It's been undeniably dear to me, I don't know why
When every other part of life seemed locked behind shutters
I knew the worthless dregs we are,
The selfless, loving saints we are,
The melting, sliding dice we've always been.

Why is it the Shins have had a theme song for every era of my life since I first fell in love with them? I can't decide if that is tragic or wonderful, or a little lame. Their song, "New Slang" said what I couldn't during our inevitable "five year crisis", it made me feel less alone in all the regret, all the promises we had both made, the hopelessness of realizing that one can never be expected to be enough to be everything to someone else and the eventual realization that that is okay. It was an incredibly rough patch brought on by apathy and stress and both of us finding other emotional outlets besides each other, and it all blew up one long night in a rented cabin beside the Colorado River as we discussed the slim likelihood of us succeeding as a couple and by morning, we knew we were at least willing to give it another shot. We got through it, if a bit hurtfully and messily, and realized truths that needed learning, and rebuilt stronger and happy to move on and let the past be the past and evicted old hurts that needed let go, but the song and the big, crushing melody spoke to me all of the sad anger and tender regret I was feeling at the time and it still stirs those emotions in me, but in a good way now. Now I see how far we have come and how much we love and I am humbled and grateful, because we are a living organism of relationship and home for each other and not a statistic, as we could have been.

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

[...]

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

 And "Those to Come" is a haunting song that still brings a prickle of tears behind my eyes, a poem that spoke to me of wanting and possibility and loving and losing, and the hope that someday, this baby we wanted would eventually come to stay and made me think about those small moments when "something bad inside you goes away" and you remember who you are again.

Eyeless in the morning sun you were
pale and mild,
a modern girl.
Taken with thought still prone to care
making tea in your underwear.
You went out in the yard to find
something to eat and clear your mind
and something bad inside me went away.

Quaking leaves and broken light ,
shifting skin,
the coming night ,
the bearers of all good things arrive.
Climb inside us twist and cry.
A kiss on your molten eyes,
myriad lives like blades of grass,
yet to be realized.
Bow as they pass.

They are cold- still,
waiting in the ether to form- feel,
kill, propagate, only to die.

They are cold- still,
waiting in the ether to form- feel,
kill, propagate, only to die.
Dissolve... magically, absurdly, they'll end,
leave... dissipate, coldly and strangely return.